Applicator machines for the attachment of electrical terminals to very large conductors usually include a press having a movable ram that is arranged to undergo reciprocating motion toward and away from a bolster plate Crimping tooling is provided consisting of a fixed anvil that is attached to the bolster plate and a mating upper die that is attached to and carried by the ram. The terminals, arranged on a plastic carrier strip, are drawn from a reel by a feed mechanism and positioned, one at a time, in alignment with the anvil and upper die. A stripped end of a wire is manually inserted into the barrel of the terminal and the press actuated to crimp the terminal onto the wire. Such a machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,613 which issued Jun. 28, 1977 to Brown et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,180 which issued Aug. 9, 1977 to Brown. In both of these patents, the machine includes a pivotal lifting device that serves two purposes. The first purpose being to guide the multiple-stranded wire end during operator insertion of the wire end into the barrel of the terminal prior to crimping, and the second to separate the crimped wire assembly from the anvil as the strip of terminals is advanced to position the next terminal in alignment with the anvil. Both of these devices provide wire guidance, the device of the '613 patent guides a full 360 degrees while the device of the '180 patent guides only the lower 180 degrees of the wire. The guiding mechanisms of both these devices suffer from the inability of the guiding surfaces to yield and retract slightly after the wire has begun to enter the barrel of the terminal and the edge of the wire's insulation engages the guide surfaces. The wire must be fully inserted into the barrel of the terminal so that the edge of the insulation is against the end of the barrel prior to actuating the crimping press. Since the outside diameter of the insulation is greater than the outside diameter of the wire, as the insulation engages the guiding surfaces, the guiding surfaces must easily retract to allow the insulated portion of the wire to pass. The two part funnel mechanism of the '613 patent has an upper half that is pivotally attached to the lower half so that it can pivot away as the wire is inserted, however, the lower half cannot retract. The funnel opening formed is slightly larger than the diameter of the wire but less than the outside diameter of the insulation of the wire. Further, the two halves form two mating conical sections having sharp corners. As the edge of the insulation engages the two conical sections; they are urged apart. The upper half is urged to pivot upwardly while the wire insulation is forced slightly upwardly over the sharp corners of the lower half, the sharp corners of both the upper and lower halves biting into and damaging the outer surface of the insulation. Further, the sharp corners tend to inhibit movement of the wire as it is being inserted. Very elaborate guiding devices having complex retraction mechanisms have been developed to overcome this problem but such devices are costly to manufacture and to maintain.
What is needed is a wire guiding device that is effective in guiding the multi-stranded wire until it begins to enter the barrel of the terminal, and then the guiding surfaces should retract slightly as the insulation of the wire engages and passes them without sharp corners damaging the insulation or inhibiting insertion of the wire into the terminal barrel.